Mini iPad, major cost concerns

Credit: AP

The iPad mini is shown in San Jose, Calif., Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2012. The device has a screen that’s about two-thirds the size of the full-size model, and Apple says it will cost $329 and up.

There’s just one problem with the new iPad Mini: The price is wrong.

The heavily anticipated 7.9-inch version of the wildly popular tablet is 20 percent thinner than the current iPad, weighs only .68 pounds and is compatible with all 275,000 apps in Apple’s tablet repertoire.

But with pricing that runs from $329 (the 16-gigabyte Wi-Fi-only version) to $659 (the 64-GB cellular version with LTE data speeds), this is hardly a budget-friendly product.

I can’t fathom why anyone would spend $659 for an iPad that fits in your hand. But sure as Siri, there will no doubt be a line at Apple stores in a week filled with people planning to do just that.

The answer is no, especially given that Google’s excellent Nexus 7 tablet costs $199 for the 8 GB version and $249 for the 16 GB. That’s arguably an even better deal than the Kindle.

Both the Kindle and Nexus 7 made Apple’s marketing chief Philip Schiller sound hyperbolic yesterday when he declared, “Others have tried to make tablets smaller than the iPad and they’ve failed miserably.”

To be sure, some have failed. But some have succeeded — at a better price.

Pricing the iPad Mini below the $300 mark would have been a nice touch, though likely it would have necessitated a price cut of iPods, which go up to $399.

Apple’s profit margins are hardly hurting. Having invented the product category of tablets, Apple has sold a whopping 100 million of them, CEO Tim Cook announced yesterday.

That’s the number of people in France and Canada combined. That’s also the number of people now receiving federal welfare benefits, including many school-aged children who would do well to have access to an iPad made for small hands. With any luck, Apple will make the iPad Mini available to schools for a better price than it’s charging general consumers.